Costco scouts Colonie for store

Quality mass seller looks at region, developer says

Updated 1:20 pm, Thursday, March 28, 2013

FILE -- Costco shoppers in New York, April 3, 2010. Hearing aids become more expensive over time, while cellphones, computers and televisions have gotten cheaper, but online retailers and even Costco offer lower prices than private audiologists. (Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times.)

"They were looking at the project we were proposing at Engel Farm," said Howard Carr of the Howard Group, a commercial real estate development firm.

And on Wednesday, a developer in Syracuse who has landed what apparently will be the first Costco upstate told The Post-Standard of Syracuse that the company was also looking for sites in Albany and Rochester.

Costco plans to open its first store upstate in Camillus, a suburb west of Syracuse.

Joe LaCivita, Colonie's planning director, said he reached out to Costco about three weeks ago to talk with its development team, hoping the company might be interested in Colonie.

Carr said he would be surprised if Costco hadn't looked at the Shoppes at Latham Circle. The redevelopment of the former Latham Circle Mall apparently still lacks an anchor tenant who would occupy a building very close in size to the average-size Costco store.

In Clifton Park, Town Planning Director John Scavo said his office gets frequent calls from site selectors who don't reveal who they're working for, and that he's been told that the region and Saratoga County in particular have been getting national attention from the retail sector.

One hurdle: New York's laws regarding the sale of wine and other alcoholic beverages.

"Every one of the stores sells a lot of wine," Carr said. But in New York state, Costco, like BJ's and other chains, would be limited to selling alcohol in just one location.

In BJ's case, it's the store in Colonie that has the liquor license.

And the alcoholic beverages would have to be sold in a separate store space.

Costco, Carr said, also would generate a lot of traffic, attracting customers from 50 or more miles away.

It's not unusual for Capital Region residents to drive 80 miles to Costco stores in central Massachusetts, Connecticut or the lower Hudson Valley.

Many drove that far to visit Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. But in both cases, the retailers eventually decided to open stores locally, with Whole Foods expected in Colonie Center early next year and Trader Joe's already open on Wolf Road.

How soon might we see a Costco? Carr said it could be two years, or even four years, away.